CRM Software Inc. is primarily known for its flagship product Junxure, long considered one of the leading client relationship management products for financial advisors. In the fall of 2007, the company solidified its position when Schwab Institutional, the leading custodian for investment advisors, discontinued its own CRM package and instead recommended Junxure as an alternative. CRM also offers ClientView Live, a turnkey software package that allows advisors to cost effectively provide client portals or private client Web pages.

I recently caught up with CRM Software's President Greg Friedman and Vice President Ken Golding, who spoke about recent developments at the firm, including improvements and enhancements they've made to ClientView Live, enhancements they've made to Junxure and a preview of the soon-to-be-released Junxure Mobile application.

ClientView Live
It has been a while since I last looked at ClientView, now known as ClientView Live, and I'm happy to report that the latest version has improved considerably since then. CRM Software has managed to retain what was good in the previous version while adding features and functionality.

When a client logs in, the home page or dashboard appears the same-and can be customized with RSS feeds, alerts, announcements, the client's contact information and links. The accounts page is also very similar to the previous version. The insurance section, though, has been enhanced and now displays additional details, and paper insurance policies can be scanned and uploaded to the site for access by clients.

Meanwhile, the Document Vault has received a major upgrade on the back end. Now advisors have access to a wizard that helps with the setup and maintenance of the clients' vaults. The wizard allows the advisors to create global settings or group settings at both the folder and document level. For example, the advisor can create a rule that says: For every client, create a "Client Information" folder. You could also create a rule that says: "In each client information folder, insert the document entitled ClientView Live User Guide."

The Portfolio Reports pulls data from either PortfolioCenter or dbCams (and will be able to pull from Advent sometime in the future), and Live Reports pulls data from Junxure. Both Portfolio Reports and Live Reports now have enhanced batch reporting capabilities. The advisor can easily designate a single client, a group of clients or all clients that a report template should be run for, and the software will automatically create and upload the reports.

In addition to these tabs, advisors and administrators now have access to some other tabs as well. One shows a complete history. One shows a list of your contacts. The third controls the look, feel and settings of the private client portals. The history section is of particular value. Here, you can see how often a client page is accessed, by whom, and when. You may find that some clients are using the site almost daily, which is valuable information. It may indicate that you can expand usage of the site for these clients to give them additional services and benefits of value to them. You can also see which clients rarely use the site, people who may need some encouragement to look around and see what benefits the site offers them. Knowing when clients are accessing the site can also be of value, so you can monitor their use and give them support when it is most needed.

Perhaps the biggest and most significant single improvement to the application is the reports assembly package. Now, advisors can create a report package that might, for example, consist of a cover letter, a market commentary, a portfolio management report and a net worth statement. The advisor can name the report's template (something like the "comprehensive quarterly report," for example), designate which clients get the report and then run it. In a matter of minutes, all clients will have a current, comprehensive document. There is no manual collating and no envelope stuffing. There are no paper and printer costs and no mailing costs. The report is delivered instantaneously to a secure box that the client can access from anywhere.

The other really significant upgrade is to the advisor's own interface, which, in the previous version of ClientView, was less than intuitive. Now, an advisor will be able to grasp many of the functions in plain English. For example, in the account update section of the client setup, you are asked: "What do you want to do?" If you answer "upload my client reports," you click the "next" button and ClientView Live will guide you through the process.

Currently, CRM Software charges a flat fee of $4,995 annually per firm for ClientView Live. With the new report package feature, that sounds like a relative bargain. If your firm is spending even six hours per reporting period creating, printing, collating and mailing reports to clients, ClientView Live can almost certainly do it cheaper and better. (You can find out more here: www.junxure.com/main/solut_cv_main.asp).

A Junxure Update
The flagship Junxure CRM product has received a few incremental upgrades of note. One frequent request of users was that they wanted to add multiple custom fields, so Junxure now allows them to add an unlimited number, and also gives the user a great deal of control over how the fields are configured. That means that besides just creating and naming a custom field, advisors can assign attributes to the field (date or currency, for example) and search them.
Meanwhile, an accounts rule wizard allows advisors to inquire into just about all investment account related data, including custom fields. The account reports wizard allows advisors to create a report using just about any field in the database, save the report as a template and then rerun it on demand.

Junxure Mobile
During the recently concluded 2009 Technology Tools for Today Conference, one message that emerged loud and clear is that smart phones will play a larger role in the life of the financial advisor in the future. The success of the iPhone, coupled with other improvements in smart phone technology, means that vendors to financial advisors will likely be extending their applications beyond the desktop and offering advisors more functions through these devices. That's exactly what the soon-to-be-released Junxure Mobile is designed to do.

CRM Software Inc. will use the same technology it has already developed for ClientView Live to deliver a mobile version of Junxure to smart phones. Advisors will log on to the same Web site that hosts ClientView to be authenticated. Like ClientView, Junxure Mobile on the smart phone will tap into the Junxure database on the firm's server for whatever information the advisor needs to see. This is an important security consideration because it means that the data will not reside in nor be cached on the advisor's phone. Once the advisor logs off, the data is gone, so if the phone is lost or stolen, the Junxure data will not be compromised. In addition, the connection between the phone and the Web site will have an automatic timeout, so if the advisor puts the phone down and activity stops, the connection will be automatically terminated after a certain period. If an automatic logoff occurs, Junxure data will not be accessible again until the user's identity is reconfirmed.

Once the advisor logs on, the main menu will be displayed. From here, the advisor can choose to view a list of pending actions or view alerts. These two lists are identical to what the advisor would see when logging into the default Junxure dashboard on the desktop version. In addition, the advisor can choose to search for any contact in the database or can add a contact.

Junxure has tried to design the mobile app so that advisors can access all of the information they would typically need when they're on the road. For example, they can open actions, edit them, add keywords and add notes. They can also search the client database and pull up a client record. The mobile record is not as extensive as the full one on the desktop, but it includes addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, the client service level, any pending actions for the client, and more. You can also view the client history in a list mode or in a more detailed mode. From within a client record, you can click to e-mail, click to telephone, add an action, add notes, etc. In short, advisors can access and interact with contact records, actions, notes and alerts as well as e-mail and telephone features.

The software developers have limited how much an advisor can access from the full Junxure database in order to create a more functional, cleaner interface for the mobile version. If customers request access to more data points, however, Golding is confident these could eventually be added.

I'm told that the initial version of Junxure Mobile will be compatible with BlackBerry devices, Windows Mobile devices and the iPhone. The developers have not yet tested it with Google's Android operating system, but I'm sure they will if there is demand for it.

The interface for mobile users will also be made available to remote workers using desktop or laptop computers. On a computer, the user interface will appear richer, but the data set is the same. So, while Junxure Mobile will not, for now, serve as a complete remote access replacement for GoToMyPC, a VPN or some other remote-access medium, it will allow those who need only the functions of Junxure Mobile to tap into the Junxure database easily and securely. In fact, Junxure Mobile should dovetail very nicely with the trend to travel light, perhaps with nothing more than an inexpensive netbook.

At this time, there is no pricing information available for this service, as CRM Software is still in the process of analyzing the costs associated with delivering it to clients.

It seems clear to me that CRM Software is not resting on its laurels. The company continues to improve its core product, Junxure; it has significantly enhanced ClientView Live; and Junxure Mobile looks very promising. This all bodes well for the future of the firm and the satisfaction of its clients.